Heart and Soul
by MirellaArabesque
Summary: "Hands are so useful. Dexterous. And yours played the piano. Do they still work?" Jane faces a fear with Maura's help. Romance, Rizzisles.


**A/N: I don't know that there's much to say about this one, except that I don't own Rizzoli and Isles, or the song Heart and Soul. But I do love reviews. :)**

"Hands are so useful," his smooth voice says into her ear. "Dexterous."

She can't see anything. It's dark all around her. She can only hear his words, and feel his moist warm breath against her face, and his hands caressing hers.

"And yours played the piano. Do they still work?"

Suddenly he's gone, and she can see that she's seated at a piano bench, her old piano in front of her. She doesn't know why, but she knows she _has_ to play, or something terrible will happen, something even more terrible than what he's already done to her. So her fingers find the keys, but the noise that comes out isn't right. She knows that key isn't supposed to make that sound, and now that she thinks about it, she's pretty sure that the numbers of black and white keys next to each other are wrong. And then blood is pouring out of her hands, and it's even harder to see the keys as red warm liquid spreads over them. It _burns_ but she plays more frantically; she has to make it sound right. She hears the awful noise the piano is creating as she tries so hard to play like she once could; she hears his laughter and words she can't make out; she hears her own sobs. Finally the sound all blends together into one monotonous note as she desperately keeps playing, and the note turns into a beeping, and there are no longer blood-stained keys in front of her, but a white ceiling and bright sunshine.

Jane has been relieved to wake from many nightmares, but she's never appreciated the sound of her alarm clock quite like this.

When she first awoke in the hospital after Hoyt had tortured her, she didn't remember that he had hurt her hands. With all the drugs they were pumping into her, she wasn't even sure she _had_ any hands, because she sure as hell couldn't feel them attached to her body. She had smiled when she saw Korsak sitting in a chair by her bed, and though she couldn't form words through the haze in her mind, she tried to convey her gratitude at his presence through her facial expressions – the only part of her body that she was aware of.

Gradually, though, there were fewer and fewer drugs. There was no pain for quite a while, but she could feel that her hands were heavy. When it occurred to her to inspect them, she saw the bandages. And she remembered.

The next time Korsak came to visit, Frank was standing outside the door to her room. "She doesn't want to see you," her father said sadly. He could hear his wife's shushing and useless words of comfort; he could hear his baby girl, who never let anyone see when she was hurting, sobbing into her mother's shoulder.

To an observer, it would appear that things got easier. Jane put her walls back up and, when she had healed enough, went into PT with the same determination she had always given work. She saw a shrink and learned to give the answers they wanted to get. She smiled and told her mother she was fine. She watched the game with her father on the hospital room TV and teased her brother when he came to visit. She put up with living in her parents' house until she was healed enough to do things on her own, and then she moved back in to her own apartment. She learned to bite her pillow when the nightmares caused her to wake screaming, to breathe deeply when she forgot and moved her hands the wrong way, or when the weather changed and the constant ache made her crazy. She learned again how to hold a fork, a pencil, a gun.

She didn't touch a piano.

About a week after she was finally cleared for active duty, a new medical examiner came to the precinct. Dr. Maura Isles made Jane uneasy. To be honest, she downright pissed her off. This was supposed to be Jane's home, a place full of people like her, who she could trust. Dr. Isles was different, she dressed nice and used huge words in normal conversation. Jane saw her as insincere.

She wasn't sure when Dr. Isles became Maura, but she does remember the first night she talked to her about everything that had happened with Hoyt. It's the first time she talked about it in detail to anyone other than the shrink, and the first time she'd been truly honest about it. After that, bringing coffee and chocolate to each other became a part of daily life for the ME and the detective. She couldn't mark the day that she fell for the doctor either, but there came a moment one night, sitting on the couch so close to her, that kissing her just felt natural.

If it weren't for Maura, she knows she probably never would have recovered mentally to the extent that she did. She would never recover fully, but it was better than nothing. The nightmares were fewer – though she still woke Dr. Isles up screaming, now at least she had someone to hold her as she fell back asleep. Maura would always ask if she wanted to talk, and Jane was always grateful that she didn't press for information. Most of the time she would roll over silently and close her eyes again, hoping for some dreamless sleep.

And now there was this new nightmare, frequently recurring, which seemed strange because her conscious mind barely thought about the piano. She didn't really let it. She still had her little upright, but instead of a musical instrument it was a piece of furniture, an extra flat surface to set junk mail or stacks of paperwork or anything she couldn't find a place for. It blended into the space so much that even Maura, who noticed everything, didn't say anything about it. She didn't once ask if Jane played. Jane never felt an urge to sit down and play again – or at least, she didn't let herself acknowledge the urge until late one night, when the dream returned again.

She managed not to cry out this time, but instead woke shaking in Maura's arms. The doctor was still asleep, and Jane gently untangled herself from the embrace. She stood and walked without thinking of where she was going, until she was in the living room of her apartment, facing the piano.

Slowly, cautiously, she lifted the lid from the keys. It was dusty, and she briefly thought about how long it had been since she touched it. Her heart pounded a little at the idea of pressing one of those keys again. She could remember the feeling of making music, but even more vividly she remembered the horror of frantically crashing on the keys, no recognizable sound coming out.

She could hold a gun, she could go back to work. Every day she could put more guys like Hoyt in prison. She had defeated him in every aspect of her recovery that she had so far explored.

Except for the nightmares. And she hated that.

She had know way of knowing if her hands would work. And she didn't want to give him another way to win.

After staring at the keys for a long time, Jane brushed her fingers across them nostalgically, not enough to make any sound, and closed the lid. She returned to bed and sighed at the feeling of Maura pressing herself close to Jane's warm body.

For three days after that she was so busy with work that she barely had time to think about the piano. But when the case was finally over she found herself slipping out of Maura's hold again, padding on bare feet through the apartment until she reached the piano. This time she went as far as to open the lid and sit down at the bench before the bedroom door creaked behind her.

She had stood and whirled around within half a second. Since Hoyt, especially late at night like this, her reflexes had been taut and quick, and the slightest sound would have her ready to defend herself instantly. But it was Maura standing in the doorway, the one person against whom Jane had no defenses.

"Have you played since?" the doctor whispered. "I never wanted to ask… you stare at it sometimes when you're thinking hard."

Jane didn't know whether she was answering the question or denying the statement or just admitting her helplessness at the moment, but she shook her head and walked towards her lover, leading her back to bed silently.

The next day when she got home, Maura was already there. "Jane," she asked softly, "Would you mind if I played a little? You've got me thinking about how long it's been since I've touched a piano."

Jane shrugged nonchalantly, pretending she didn't care. It had taken her a long time to fall asleep the night before, and in her drowsy state after a day of work, she half expected that horrible sound to come out of the keys when Maura touched them. She held her breath, not even realizing it until the first few notes of _Fur Elise_ filled the room and she let it out.

"_Fur Elise_?" she murmured, crossing the room and placing her hands on the blonde's shoulders.

Stumbling over a few notes as she tried to play and speak at the same time, Maura replied, "I didn't have that many lessons. I think it's the only thing I remember how to play. Well, besides _Heart and Soul_."

"Yeah," Jane laughed softly. "Everyone knows that one. I could even get Tommy to play it with me every now and then."

"Tommy played?"

"Only _Heart and Soul_."

With a giggle, Maura stopped playing, quickly sobered, and hesitated. "Do you want to try it?"

Eyebrows pulling together briefly, Jane shook her head. "Soon," she said, backing away slightly. "But not right now."

"Okay," Maura nodded. "I understand."

The wonderful thing about Maura was that she did, she really did.

In the weeks after that, Jane made almost nightly visits to the piano. She sat on the bench, trailed her fingers over the keys, but never pressed hard enough to make a sound. Maura played some evenings, mostly _Fur Elise_ or other half-remembered classical pieces she had learned when she was young.

"Do you mind me playing?" she asked one night as Jane's lips trailed a soft line across her shoulder. "Does it make you sad?"

"No," the detective whispered against her skin. "I want to play, Maura, I want to play so bad. I think I'm just… I'm waiting until I need it so much that the fear won't matter. I'm a coward."

Maura shook her head and laughed at her lover's foolishness. "I don't think I've ever met anyone who was less of a coward than you, Jane."

That night she dreamt of Hoyt and the piano again. It seemed to go on for hours, and she watched the life flow from her arms and stain the keys in front of her like it did every other time she had the dream. This time, though, just before she finally dragged herself awake, she heard one clear, high note among the crashing and noise.

Heart pounding, but for an entirely different reason than usual, Jane rolled over and whispered, "Maur. I need you to wake up."

The ME blinked sleepily, taking a few seconds to adjust to being awake. "Jane?"

Grasping Maura's hand and pressing it to her lips, she replied, "Would you like to play a duet with me?"

Silently, grinning, Maura pulled the shaking detective to the living room, not caring what the neighbors would think about a midnight piano concert. Jane sat at the bench, opened the lid, and hesitated. Her hands trembled; she could barely rest them still on the keys.

"Jane," Maura sighed, sitting on the side of the bench nearer to the higher keys. "You don't have to… if you need more time…"

Jane shook her head. "I'm not scared now." It was true. "I've just realized that I want it so bad."

Pausing only to kiss her lover softly on the lips, Maura whispered, "Then play me a song."

The brunette's left hand found its way to rest the index finger on the low C. She inhaled deeply and depressed the key on the exhale.

It was horribly out of tune, but there was no denying that the sound it made was somewhere in the vicinity of a low C.

A smile spreading over her face, she pressed the A. Then the F, then the G.

"Maur," she whispered, staring at her hands. She played the sequence again, and again, faster. Maura's hand found the higher notes and began to play the melody along with her.

"Heart and soul," she sang softly, watching Jane's face rather than the keys, eventually leaning her head onto the other woman's shoulder and singing against her skin. "I fell in love with you, heart and soul – the way a fool would do." Jane's right hand lifted to the keys and began to accompany her left, arpeggiating the same notes. It was simple even with both hands, but she knew she would have time later to work her way up to the skill she had once had. This wasn't about how well she could play, and, surprised, she suddenly realized it wasn't about Hoyt anymore.

_But now I see_

_What one embrace can do._

_Look at me,_

_It's got me loving you madly,_

_That little kiss you stole,_

_Held all my heart and soul._


End file.
